alpineSTOCK.com website relaunched:
As of July 15, 2015, alpineSTOCK.com welcomes customers and photographers in a completely new design. We improved usability, presentation and user experience and made sure to fully support mobile devices. Aside from the design we re-worked any functionality and added a lot of new features. The website now benefits from highly increased server-power and a faster network connection. SSL encryption provides better security and protection.

Alpine lakes are fascinating. Big lakes in alpine valleys are beautiful and easy accessible while smaller lakes at higher altitudes are real gems and usually not easy to reach. After a long hiking trip you get rewarded by a blue, turquoise or green pearl, reflecting the surrounding mountains. There are different types of lakes. Although most high alpine lakes consist of melting water, some have a permanent stream feeding them and some are just the rest of a melted snow patch, disappearing in the course of summer. Glacier surface lakes are very special as they might disappear from one day to the other – the moving glacier ice simply opens natural drains, and the lake is gone. This special introduces a few very nice, little lakes.

Bird photography at alpineSTOCK.com? Must be alpine birds, right? Not necessarily. Bird images are not always of genuine alpine character, but many species have their natural habitat in mountaineous or hilly regions as well as in other regions of the world. As an example, this goes for the well-known Kingfisher. Bird photographer Rapeepong Puttakumwong creates striking images. He manages to combine technical skills and excellent image composition perfectly. It takes much enthusiasm to specialize in this special genre.

alpineSTOCK.com is extending its portfolio of aerial photography significantly within the next months. Aerial photography offers not only new vistas of known landscapes, it also provides a nice overview over the surrounding of mountains. Of course, the exact geographical keywording will be maintained to allow precise search results within alpineSTOCK.com’s catalog. A few examples may provide an impression of what’s to be expected soon.

Picturemaxx is the professional media market platform par excellence. It offers media buyers a precise search and acquisition of a worldwide variety of digital content. Picturemaxx operates its media search engine my-picturemaxx™ exclusively, providing image buyers a simultaneous search in different databases of image agencies, media portals and archives. As of January 21st 2014, this is effective for the image catalog of alpineSTOCK.com as well.

The first day in January couldn’t start any better: A clear sky, crisp cold air and mountains covered with fresh snow. No matter what you do on the first morning of a new year in the alps, you will enjoy the beauty of alpine winter.

Meanwhile, it’s a well-known fact that the climate is currently warming and the glaciers recess. The decline of glaciers is especially noticeable for alpinists and alpine photographers. It’s the grinding marks left side and right side of the valleys which have been created by the former glacier surface. These marks show where the highest positions of a glacier have been once in the little ice-age in 1860.

Sabine Vogel is a free lancing photographer with a strong addiction to landscape shooting. She’s attracted by small details and discovers little worlds of patterns and textures. Isolating the main subject of a photograph is important to good photography – when it comes to creating abstracts, it is crucial. Abstracts are isolated from their original context and appear without any distraction.

Photographer and Geoscientist Michael Szoenyi is fully devoted to nature and outdoor photography. The works are not created just passing by, but are the result of extensive preparation, photography know-how and the feeling for the right moment to pull the trigger. This is the recipe for his success of capturing the beauty and unique flavor of individual regions aesthetically and in technical perfection.

The valley of Verzasca is located in the italian-speaking south of Switzerland, in Canton Ticino. What makes this valley special compared to lots of other valleys in this region is its emerald-green, crystal clear river. The Verzasca river is favored by divers and canoeists; some big rocks in its river bed are equipped with pitons to attract climbers.

Korsak, the photographer of a series of moody, subtle and well composed images of remote alpine-like country sites, says: “I created this photograph in in the early afternoon, during spring time. I travelled through the country side, looking for a special place to portrait. Eventually I found a small village which looked almost deserted. When I spotted an old barn...

Spring in higher alpine regions is different from fresh green meadows, first flowers and leaves. The alpine spring offers photographers uncounted opportunities to enter the highest locations in the mountains. Days are already longer than in winter, the sun is much stronger and temperatures are comparably comfortable. Still, weather can be unstable.

There are many routes to climb a mountain. In case of the Aletschhorn (4’195m / 13 763 ft) the old regular ascend route lead via Mittelaletschbiwak and the NE – flank to the summit, clearly visible here by the large snow fields below the peak. Today, the regular ascend is considered to start at...

Backcountry skiing is a great way to combine sport, recreation and photography. Especially if your company acts as models-in-landscape. With the inclusion of people photographs of landscapes get a scale, the viewer compares the size of climbers and skiier with the surrounding. This image shows the key part of the alpine ski climb route to mount Sulzfluh, Grisons, Switzerland.

The Château Chillon belongs to the frequently visited sight-seeing destinations of Switzerland. Tourists come mainly during the daytime, taking snapshots in daylight. There are many images of this iconic castle available, but only a few show this beauty in special light conditions.

The mountain Piz Bernina at 4’048m elevation a.m.s.l. is the highest peak of the Canton Grisons and the only 4’000m peak of the “eastern alps”. The most beautiful alpine ascend to its summit is the famous Biancograt, a pure snow ridge of approx. 800m lenght and over 400m height. Piz Bernina is surrounded by beautiful, ice covered summits like the well-known Piz Palü, Piz Roseg and Piz Morteratsch. This majestic ensemble is also called “Festsaal der Alpen”.

Every year in October, the Swiss Airforce demonstrates its capabilities in an outstanding air show in the mountains, the Axalp Live Fire Event. The event takes place during two days at the Axalp-Ebenfluh firing range at an elevation of 2’250 m a.s.l., above Lake Brienz in the Canton of Bern. F-5E Tiger and F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets are performing formation flying and low passes over the “Grätli”. Below this small saddle between Axalphorn and the peaks of Wildgärst, firing targets are prepared.

Fresh summer snow? Of course! Many regions of Switzerland are located at high altitude. Snow in summer is a common event there. In most cases, the virgin snow is gone within a few days, but this should be enough time for the photographer to capture the pure beauty of a new snow blanket over green meadows.

August is one of the perfect months for high climbs. The rock is mostly free from snow, so it’s a pleasure to climb. Climbing as a photographer means you have to carry all your camera gear and to make sure to have it handy anytime. A side-carried bag does well even for DSLRs. For this shot a 16-35mm wide-angle lens was used to work out the sharpness of the ridge.

The Big Aletsch Glacier is a very fascinating glacier. To learn about it’s sheer size, a visit of the peak of Eggishorn is very good. You can reach this summit by hiking or by cablecar. From there, you can overlook the whole Aletsch Glacier, from it’s start at Mt. Mönch over the Konkordiaplatz down to the end. After this, you hike down an easy but steep path to Märjelensee.

Visitors of Mount Titlis, Engelberg, are very delighted to see Buddha from the top platform. Although many others may have had this impression before, chinese gymnastics acrobat Donghua Li spotted this Buddha shaped rock in 1996 and was immediately inspired to win at the Olympics. Since then, many Chinese tourists come and visit this wonderful region of Mount Titlis.

Lee Wave Clouds are weather phenomena which usually occur in the lee side of terrain like mountain ranges. It was a very special moment to capture these waves in evening light over a hill, because in most cases you can catch them on plain daylight, which makes the image rather flat. This shot was made...

Many mountain lovers already visited Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix, France. Aiguille du Midi provides the second highest cablecar top station of Europe with 3’777m / 12 391ft (Klein Matterhorn top station is 3’820m / 12 532ft). You have a beautiful vista there. This photo of Aiguille du Midi was made during...

The weather was mixed the morning of the last day of Easter in Zermatt, so we decided to choose a “small” ski tour, starting at the top station of the Stockhorn installation, traversing Mt. Stockhorn and entering Mt. Torre di Castelfranco – a nice country border walk. From the Swiss side you can enter Mt. Torre di Castelfranco easily by ski over an unsteep, friendly glacier...

alpineSTOCK.com is glad to present outstanding expedition photography by Spanish Highs in this special. Spanish Highs about his photography:
“I am fortunate. My job as a mountain guide entails working in the mountains, which have been my life for the past 40 years...

HANSRE joins the passion for photographing alpine wildflowers and frequent mountaineering. The result was the creation of a continuously growing portfolio comprising a huge number of different alpine plant species. Photography by HANSRE is highly valuable in terms of documentation as well as...

Johannes Börker is a travel photographer. He traveled Namibia and returned with beautiful photographs, which are the topic of this alpineSTOCK.com special. His work is dedicated to landscape photography, accompanied by visual detail studies. See the details...

This special shows four images: A climber and alpinist on the ridge of Aiguille du Tour after ascending the Couloir du Table, sitting between two spikey rocks. The second photo shows an alpinist as well; he’s struggeling with deep snow while ascending the northern ridge of Galenstock, Uri, Switzerland. The third image depicts...

The Breithorn of Zermatt (4’164m) is most likely the easiest to climb 4000m – peak. In case you choose the top station of the Klein Matterhorn cable car (approx. 3’800m) as a starting point, the path to the summit is done by easy snow hiking. Much more enjoyable is the traverse of the complete ridge of the Breithorn instead of visiting the W-summit only...